Some people say that Religion is the enemy of science and although sometimes these two institutions clash, religion and science can (and do) play nicely together most of the time. The real enemy of science is ignorance and misinformation that is pervading our culture.
Pick up any newspaper this week or go to any online news site and you will read about the tragic circumstances around the death of 10-year-old Tamar Stitt. This beautiful young girl was diagnosed with Liver cancer in 2009 and although we are not privy to all the information her parents rejected the advice of medical professionals and instead opted for a natural therapy in South America to treat cancer.
We are in no way insinuating that if she had been treated with chemotherapy that she would have lived and we want to point out that as a journalist we are not privy to all the medical records of individuals. The true travesty in this story is people’s mistrust of medical science.
When people think about science they straight away think about Space, advanced technologies and physics but very few think about medicine, even though it is probably the science that they most come into contact with on a daily basis. Medical science is the same as every other field of science and all of them have their fair share of charlatans and naysayers but like all science, the process of peer review work holds most of these people to account. What we are trying to get across here is that millions upon millions of dollars, man-hours, skill and expertise go into all scientific discoveries, especially medicine.
The parents of Tamar Stitt chose to treat their daughter with natural therapies which included having mud treatments wrapped around her abdomen, eating fruit and having herbal teas containing dandelion and other herbs. This was their choice and right to choose for their daughter, we are not questioning this but we are asking why they chose to reject the advice of doctors?
In our view, these natural treatments could have and should have been performed in conjunction with the recommendations from the doctors if that is what the parent felt where right. The scientifically backed evidence of the effectiveness of chemotherapy as a treatment has been studied and replicated thousands of times and published in medical journals. This Fact alone should have been enough for the parents to trust the doctors and choose to treat cancer with chemotherapy.
The parents cited a few reasons for not having the treatment as they felt pressured by doctors and they didn’t want their daughter to lose her hearing or her hair. Again we don’t have all the information regarding how the doctors approached the subject or how the parents were treated but this doesn’t change the fact that they chose a non-scientifically backed treatment based on incidental things such as hearing or looks rather than the best chance of survival for their daughter.
Doctors from Princess Margaret Hospital had applied to the Supreme Court to hear an application to force them to undergo medical treatment but Tamar was flown out of the country on the same day. It could be said that perhaps this was the main reason why Tamar had natural therapies in another country, as her parents feared being forced by the courts to treat their daughter with chemotherapy. An inquest into her death is currently being held in Perth, Western Australia.
People seem to think that medicine can magically fix all the problems we encounter with our bodies and maybe one day in the future we might be able to claim this but medicine like all science is a work in progress and the real problem here is not the parents decision but a lack of science education and appreciation in our culture that led to their decision. Misinformation and general slander of science (especially in medicine) is widespread on the internet and it is causing a cultural mistrust of science.
The vaccine debate is a prime example of this, there is thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies into the effectiveness of vaccines and the fact that we have eradicated so many horrible diseases already is an astounding achievement but thanks to a small group of individuals who think that vaccines cause Autism and even death, people are not getting vaccinated. There has only been 1 study that has linked Autism with vaccines and that study has been discredited and could not be replicated in the hundreds of studies that have come after it. Any deaths that can be attributed to vaccines are no more than the risk of having a bad reaction to taking a painkiller or being struck by lightning which is an amazingly small risk, in fact driving in a car is thousands of times riskier than a vaccine and we all do that on a daily basis.
You have probably seen this type of thing already on Facebook or other sites and there are thousands upon thousands of similar cases with no scientific evidence but claim to cure anything from the common cold to cancer, or even cause it! For instance, there is a photo of some “2-minute” noodles with superimposed text that says “instant noodles have been scientifically proven to cause cancer.” The fact that they don’t cite a scientific article published in a journal for their evidence is a huge red flag for any learned person but I personally know people who will no longer buy instant noodle because of this picture.
Either way, you look at this sad scenario we need to ensure that our kids and the general population have a better understanding of how important science to our culture, how science works and why it should not be mistrusted without proper published scientific evidence.
Next time you see a picture or an article that claims something, why not search on google scholar (a search just for published scientific journals) and see if you can verify what they are saying. The fundamental nature of science is to question and you should question everything but if the evidence from published scientific articles pushed you in an uncomfortable direct it is you who need to change not the science.
R.I.P Tamar Stitt, we wish you lived in a more educated world.
Stay curious – C.Costigan
